Teaching values in education through reading children ´s stories by Ecuadorian authors

Abstract

Values education is a fundamental pillar in the holistic development of third-grade elementary school students, as children between the ages of 7 and 8 are actively constructing their moral and social identity at this stage. Reading children's stories by Ecuadorian authors is presented as a contextualized pedagogical strategy that, by integrating local cultural references, facilitates the internalization of values such as honesty, empathy, and solidarity. This article aims to analyze how reading children's stories by Ecuadorian authors influences values education in third-grade elementary school students at a private educational institution in the province of Manabí. The research adopts a positivist paradigm, a mixed approach, and a non-experimental, descriptive design. Data were collected through Survey No. 1 administered to teachers and Observation Guide No. 2 applied during classroom sessions with third-grade students. The results show that teachers use stories by Ecuadorian authors two or three times a week, prioritizing values of respect and responsibility, with storytelling and illustrations as the predominant adaptive strategies. Students demonstrate high levels of motivation, interest, and identification with the characters, transferring the values learned to observable behaviors in the classroom. It is concluded that the systematic and intentional incorporation of Ecuadorian children's literature in the elementary classroom represents a high-impact educational resource for children's moral development and cultural identity, although its use requires greater regularity and systematization